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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher
Original language
English
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FIGURES OF SPEECH

Sarai Shavit

A taut, short novel about desire, centered on the affair between an older writer of renown and a young literature student, is perfect for fans of Asymmetry by Lisa Halliday and Jenny Offil's Dept. Of Speculation.
The affair is torrid, all consuming, and brief. Now, twenty years after their parting, a young woman bumps into her old flame at a writer's conference. In 176 brief chapters, she attempts to make sense of their liaison in the face of its loss. Written in the form of a love letter, these delicate snapshots of finely-wrought prose are composed in passion by the young woman but are never dispatched to her lover. FIGURES OF SPEECH explores an asymmetrical affair from the inside, teasing out time-worn cliches and giving us a protagonist who walks freely into a relationship where she is always at a disadvantage, yet maintains her agency throughout.

FIGURES OF SPEECH lays bare the pleasures and the perils of forbidden entanglements, and the strength of a woman who demands to have what she desires. It is a book that begs to be consumed in one sitting.

SARAI SHAVIT is a poet, writer, literary editor and television presenter. She has published two books of fiction and two poetry collections. Her award-winning poetry has been translated into German, English, French and Malayalam. She has won the Tel Aviv Municipality Poetry Prize, the Goldberg Prize for Literature, and the Mifal Hapayis Poetry Prize. Shavit currently a curator of literary festivals, and the editor-in-chief of the Hebrew magazine "Moznayim." She teaches creative writing at Tel Aviv University and the Bezalel Academy of Arts, and serves as the official literary scout of KI Broadcasting Company.
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Book

Published 2022-03-01 by Achuzat Bayit

Book

Published 2022-03-01 by Achuzat Bayit

Comments

Italian: Neri Pozza; Brazilian: offer

"Sharp, clever, and touching. Figures of Speech is a rare flower in the field of Israeli literature."

Shavit's talk at the Florence Culture Festival in August was attended by 350 people. In fact, the Italian response has been so positive that Shavit will be coming back in October for a book tour, visiting Milan, Torino and Rome.

"A brave, exceptional piece. [Shavit has] an amazing ability to tell story."

"Sarai Shavit creates a magical moment in Figures of Speech. She gently and sensitively blends poetry and prose into a book mesmerizing in its language. This is a taut and perfect novella by one of the sharpest and most talented writers working today."

"In Figures of Speech, Shavit succeeds in melding the magic of poetry into the language of prose. This is a sharp, mesmerizing and precise book."

"Although Figures of Speech is concise, reading it feels like getting lost in an absorbing, hefty novel. Figures of Speech demonstrates literature's ability to exist between two fascinating extremes: sexual exploitation and consensual love. A beautiful, powerful, and complex story."

"Special and feminine, sexy and exciting."

"It's hard to pick a single quote from this book, because it is beautiful throughout. Is it a narrative poem? A poetic novel? A love letter in short segments? Does it matter? When it works, it works."

[In FIGURES OF SPEECH] the clarity of writing is the antidote to the madness of love. Sparse, intense, and refined.

"Short, beautiful and powerful. A book that stays with you long after reading."

FIGURES OF SPEECH flows like water, hypnotizes; it has an almost enigmatic quality to it.

"A book that is breathtaking in its beauty, painful and spectacular at once...The most refreshing book I have read in a long time."